What books are considered "Essential" for running PF 2E?
- the Core Rule Book (obviously)
- the Bestiary (at least the first)
- the Gamemastery Guide (if adjustments to the adventure are needed/wanted)
What else?
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That's the bare necessities, but I would heavily recommend APG and B2/B3 to give you the fuller picture. These books are considered "core" by Paizo - anything beyond that (Secrets of Magic, Guns & Gears) is more in the real of "optional, to be introduced a'la carte depending on what people are after".
If you're new to the setting like me I've found the World Guide to be a great introduction to the "feel" of Golarion. Its by no means overly detailed like the FANTASTIC Mwangi Expanse but it will show you the basics of what the Inner sea region is about and its political and cultural dynamics.
That's the bare necessities, but I would heavily recommend APG and B2/B3 to give you the fuller picture. These books are considered "core" by Paizo - anything beyond that (Secrets of Magic, Guns & Gears) is more in the real of "optional, to be introduced a'la carte depending on what people are after".
I thought Paizo's core only included B2.
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If using Golarion, Lost Omens: Legends is also a great look at some of the big movers and shakers of the setting, and Lost Omens: Gods & Magic can be very helpful to the GM as well for infusing adventures with divine (or divine-adjacent) flavor.
But yeah, everything else is either more player-facing (Advanced Player's Guide, Character Guide, Ancestry Guide etc.) or more specific in scope and not crucial (post-core books like Secrets of Magic or specific Lost Omens releases).
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AoN
I'll assume they're a newbie (like me!) so they may not know the shorthand for the Archive of Nethys, which has tons of monster stats, feats, and info but lacking the....finesse of a book (Im a librarian so I'm biased).
Follow this link, its a great resource for starting GMs and veterans alike. https://2e.aonprd.com/
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What books are considered "Essential" for running PF 2E?
- the Core Rule Book (obviously)
- the Bestiary (at least the first)
- the Gamemastery Guide (if adjustments to the adventure are needed/wanted)What else?
That's it really. The rest are certainly nice to have but you could absolutely run a full campaign with only those books.
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Why would you limit yourself to books?
Why would you limit yourself to a small set of them? This game doesn't have the balance problems of the old game.
Its 99% online. I buy the books to support the game, and only occasionally reference them.
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AoNI'll assume they're a newbie (like me!) so they may not know the shorthand for the Archive of Nethys, which has tons of monster stats, feats, and info but lacking the....finesse of a book (Im a librarian so I'm biased).
Follow this link, its a great resource for starting GMs and veterans alike. https://2e.aonprd.com/
I'd disagree. One of the biggest gripes people have with Pathfinder 2e is the editing. While the index is a useful solution to this, hyperlinks are way faster :p
Also AoN is 100% free, which is insane to me.
However, AoN can be cryptic and might force you to refer to the rules to read more about something.
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To answer rules questions on the boards, I use AoN to check the wording mentioned by the poster and then I use keywords to find relevant parts of the rules to provide my answer.
The only thing missing IMO is the ability to search with action symbols. AFAIK, there is no way to search for all reactions for example.